Prophet Muhammad’s (s.a.w) Hadith of the Fly is confirmed by Science

The Holy Quran and the traditional sayings of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) are the two legs of the Religion of Islam ,

The Holy Quran contains scientific miracles that have been already confiremed scientifically . These Holy Scientific verses were revealed more than 1400 years ago , at the time of Prophet Mohammad there were many other different miracles to make people believe . Because Quran will be the last reveald Book till life ends , God has made it overflowing Book with miracles that suit every age and its kind of civilization . As we live now in the age of science , we find that there are a lot of scientific miracles in Quran in addition to the Hadiths (prophet’s traditional sayings ).

“Medically it is well known now that a fly carries some pathagens on some parts of its body as mentioned by the Prophet (before 1400 years. approx. when the humans knew very little of modern medicine.) Similarly Allah created organisms and other mechanisms which kill these pathagens e.g. penicillin Fungus kills pathogenic organisms like Staphalococci and others etc. Recently experiments have been done under supervision which indicate that a fly carries the disease (pathagens) plus the antidote for those organ-isms. Ordinarily when a fly touches a liquid food it infects the liquid with its pathogens, so it must be dipped in order to release also the antidote for those pathogens to act as a counter balance to the pathogens.

The Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) said: “If a fly falls into the drink of any one of you, he should dunk it all the way in and then remove it, because on one if its wings is disease and on the other is its cure.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (3320, 5782)]

The Prophet (Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him) alluded to both facts 1,400 years ago when he said, as narrated from Abu Hurayra and Abu Sa`id al-Khudri by al-Bukhari and in the Sunan:

The greatness of God’s creation in the eyes of the fly

Only in modern times was it discovered that the common fly carried parasitic pathogens for many diseases including malaria, typhoid fever, cholera, and others. It was also discovered that the fly carried parasitic bacteriophagic fungi capable of fighting the germs of all these diseases.

If a fly falls into one of your containers [of food or drink], immerse it completely (falyaghmis-hu kullahu) before removing it, for under one of its wings there is venom and under another there is its antidote.

It is established that house flies are carriers of dangerous pathogens of animals and humans. Even the muscaphobic critics of this hadith are forced to admit that no one at the time of the Prophet, upon him peace, knew that flies carry such harmful organisms. Whence the observation that “under one of its wings there is venom”?

Second, from the perspective of logic, if the fly did not carry some sort of protection in the form of an antidote or immunity, it would perish from its own poisonous burden and there would be no fly left in the world.

Further, the transmission of what the fly carries in or on its body is not an automatic fact. For example, the microbe responsible for ulcers and other stomach ailments can live on houseflies, although it remains to be seen whether flies transmit the pathogen.

There has long been evidence of bacterial pathogen-suppressing micro-organisms living in houseflies. An article in Vol. 43 of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Journal of Experimental Medicine (1927) p. 1037 stated:

The flies were given some of the cultured microbes for certain diseases. After some time the germs died and no trace was left of them while a germ-devouring substance formed in the flies – bacteriophages. If a saline solution were to be obtained from these flies it would contain bacteriophages able to suppress four kinds of disease-inducing germs and to benefit immunity against four other kinds.

Cited in `Abd Allah al-Qusami, Mushkilat al-Ahadith al-Nabawiyya wa-Bayanuha (p. 42).

More recently, a Colorado State University website on entomology states, “Gnotobiotic [=germ-free] insects (Greenberg et al, 1970) were used to provide evidence of the bacterial pathogen-suppressing ability of the microbiota of Musca domestica [houseflies] …. most relationships between insects and their microbiota remain undefined. Studies with gnotobiotic locusts suggest that the microbiota confers previously unexpected benefits for the insect host.”

So then, flies are not only pathogenic carriers but also carry microbiota that can be beneficent. The fly microbiota were described as “longitudinal yeast cells living as parasites inside their bellies. These yeast cells, in order to perpetuate their life cycle, protrude through certain respiratory tubules of the fly. If the fly is dipped in a liquid, the cells burst into the fluid and the content of those cells is an antidote for the pathogens which the fly carries.” Cf. Footnote in the Translation of the Meanings of Sahih al-Bukhari by Muhammad Muhsin Khan (7:372, Book 76 Medicine, Chapter 58, Hadith 5782).

These fly microbiota are bacteriophagic or “germ-eating”. Bacteriophages are viruses of viruses. They attack viruses and bacteria. They can be selected and bred to kill specific organisms. The viruses infect a bacterium, replicate and fill the bacterial cell with new copies of the virus, and then break through the bacterium’s cell wall, causing it to burst. The existence of similar bacteria-killing mechanisms in two bacteriophages suggests that antibiotics for human infections might be designed on the basis of these cell wall-destroying proteins. Science 292 (June 2001) p. 2326-2329.

Bacteriophagic medicine was available in the West before the forties but was discontinued when penicillin and other “miracle antibiotics” came out. Bacteriophages continued to flourish in Eastern Europe as an over-the-counter medicine. The “O1-phage” has been used for diagnosis of all Salmonella types while the prophylaxis of Shigella dysentery was conducted with the help of phages. Annales Immunologiae Hungaricae No. 9 (1966) in German.

“Phage therapy” is now making a comeback in the West:

First named in 1917 by researcher Felix d’Herelle at France ‘s Pasteur Institute, bacteriophages (or just phages for short) are viruses that prey upon bacteria. They have a simple structure – a DNA-filled head attached by a shaft to spidery “legs” that are used to grip onto the surface of a bacterium. Once a phage latches onto a bacterium, it injects its payload of genetic material into the bacterium’s innards. The bacterium then begins to rapidly produce “daughter” copies of the phage — until the bacterium becomes too full and ruptures, sending hundreds of new phage particles into the open world.

Doctors used phages as medical treatment for illnesses ranging from cholera to typhoid fevers. In some cases, a liquid containing the phage was poured into an open wound. In others, they were given orally, via aerosol, or injected. In some cases, the treatments worked well – in others, they did not. When antibiotics came into the mainstream, phage therapy largely faded in the west.

However, researchers in eastern Europe, including the former Soviet Union , continued their studies of the potential healing properties of phages. And now that strains of bacteria resistant to standard antibiotics are on the rise, the idea of phage therapy has been getting more attention in the worldwide medical community. Several biotechnology companies have been formed in the U.S. to develop bacteriophage-based treatments – many of them drawing on the expertise of researchers from eastern Europe.”

Research on the medical application of bacteriophages is now considered to be in its most promising stage. A University of Pittsburgh researcher said in June 2001, “Given the sheer number and variety of bacteriophages lurking on the planet, the viruses may represent a sizable untapped reservoir of new therapeutics.” Science292 (June 2001) p. 2326-2329.

Possibilities for use of bacteriophages in disease control is discussed in the article “Smaller Fleas… Ad infinitum: Therapeutic Bacteriophage Redux” in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America [PNAS] Vol. 93 No. 8 (April 16, 1996), 3167-8.

The fact that the fly carried pathophagic or germ-eating agents was known to the ancients, who noticed that wasp and scorpion stings are remedied by rubbing the sore spot with a decapitated fly as mentioned in al-Antaki’s Tadhkira (1:140), al-`Ayni’s citation of Abu Muhammad Ibn al-Baytar al-Maliqi’s (d. 646) al-Jami` li-Mufradat al-Adwiya wal-Aghdhiyain `Umdat al-Qari (7:304), and al-Sha`rani’s Mukhtasar al-Suwaydi fil-Tibb (p. 98).

Avicenna preferred the use of a live chicken slit in two and applied to the wound cf. Ibn al-Azraq, Tas-hîl al- Manafi` (1306 ed. p. 171=1315 ed. p. 147). A similar use is current even today for camel urine according to a University of Calgary website.

In the two world wars the wounds of soldiers exposed to flies were observed to heal and scar faster than the wounds of unexposed soldiers. Even today, fly larvae, or maggots, are used medicinally to clean up festering wounds. They only eat dead tissue and leave healthy tissue alone.

Is the fly ritually filthy (najis)? No. The Jurists concur that the fly is pure (al-dhubab tahir) and does not defile a liquid even if its quantity is small and even if it dies in it except, according to al-Shafi`i, if one of the aspects of the liquid is affected (smell, color, taste) cf. al-Baghawi, Sharh al-Sunna (11:260-261) and al-Qastallani, Irshad al-Sari (5:304-305).

The Prophetic Sunna is an endless manual of healthy living and practical husbandry for people of all walks of life, especially the poor. The Prophet, upon him peace, at all times directed his Umma to avert waste and penury even in unsanitary conditions. Just as the hadith on camel milk and urine reveals knowledge of dietetics and natural medicine, so does the hadith of the fly reveal knowledge of preventive medicine and immunology. In this respect the command in these hadiths, as in many others, denotes an advisory Sunna of permissibility, not a literal obligation. “The command [of immersing the fly] denotes counsel (al-amru lil-irshad) so as to counter disease with cure.” Al-Qastallani, Irshad al-Sari (5:304).

Despite the abundance of supporting evidence for the authenticity of these medicinal narrations (camel and fly) on the one hand and for their scientific viability on the other, certain voices continue to reject them on both counts. Principle skepticism of authentically transmitted narrations that pertain to facts demonstrated by ancient and modern science, or whose scientific worth is just now coming into view, is the wont of stagnant minds and diseased hearts for which there is no cure save the mercy of our Lord.

Now researchers are developing a new antibiotic made of the antidode living on the fly’s surface.

God’s greatness in the creation of the hose of the fly

The latest research calls for a new antibody from the fly antidote

here is a new research titled “The new buzz on antibiotics” that was done only a weak ago …read this  study:

The surface of flies is the last place you would expect to find antibiotics, yet that is exactly where a team of Australian researchers is concentrating their efforts
Working on the theory that flies must have remarkable antimicrobial defences to survive rotting dung, meat and fruit, the team at the Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, set out to identify those antibacterial properties manifesting at different stages of a fly’s development.

“Our research is a small part of a global research effort for new antibiotics, but we are looking where we believe no-one has looked before,” said Ms Joanne Clarke, who presented the group’s findings at the Australian Society for Microbiology Conference in Melbourne this week. The project is part of her PhD thesis.
The scientists tested four different species of fly: a house fly, a sheep blowfly, a vinegar fruit fly and the control, a Queensland fruit fly which lays its eggs in fresh fruit. These larvae do not need as much antibacterial compound because they do not come into contact with as much bacteria.

Flies go through the life stages of larvae and pupae before becoming adults. In the pupae stage, the fly is encased in a protective casing and does not feed. “We predicted they would not produce many antibiotics,” said Ms Clarke.

They did not. However the larvae all showed antibacterial properties (except that of the Queensland fruit fly control).

As did all the adult fly species, including the Queensland fruit fly (which at this point requires antibacterial protection because it has contact with other flies and is mobile).

Such properties were present on the fly surface in all four species, although antibacterial properties occur in the gut as well. “You find activity in both places,” said Ms Clarke.

“The reason we concentrated on the surface is because it is a simpler extraction.”

The antibiotic material is extracted by drowning the flies in ethanol, then running the mixture through a filter to obtain the crude extract.
When this was placed in a solution with various bacteria including E.coli, Golden Staph, Candida (a yeast) and a common hospital pathogen, antibiotic action was observed every time.

“We are now trying to identify the specific antibacterial compounds,” said Ms Clarke. Ultimately these will be chemically synthesised.

Because the compounds are not from bacteria, any genes conferring resistance to them may not be as easily transferred into pathogens. It is hoped this new form of antibiotics will have a longer effective therapeutic life.
Danny Kingsley – ABC Science Online

The fly carries a disease and the cure on both its wings: Mentioned in Islam and confirmed by Science (Bacteriophages):